It is with profound sadness that I must announce the passing of one of my oldest and dearest friends, William Corpening.
William Corpening
1969-2025
An extremely inventive and quick-witted individual, William remains the greatest Gamemaster I have ever had the pleasure to play under. This is especially true when it comes to his favorite game, Champions. His original Superhero universe, Champions Earth - Wilcox Charlie-1 or more properly, 'The Age of Champions', was the single most enjoyable experience I've had as a player. I learned so many things that improved my own GMing by watching, listening, and talking to him about game design, theory, and our personal views on the subject of the craft.
Readers of this blog will be very familiar with Will's talent even if they might not immediately recognize his name:
He created the Champions 'Age of Champions' setting I use to run most of my Champions campaigns. You find the history of his world here and here.
He created Kineto.
He created the Parallel and Alternate Earth Naming/Cataloging System I still use for my Superhero campaigns to this day.
As a player, he portrayed a host of fun and memorable characters including Robert 'Robbie' Stadler in our Ghostbusters: The Home Office campaign and Vulcan First Officer and Tactical Officer Commander Sovik in Star Trek: Renown.
This only scratches the surface of all the incredible characters, events, concepts, and locations Will came up with over the years. I could go on and on about my friend and his amazing ability to bring his ideas to life.
I will end here for now but this will not be the last post that mentioned William Corpening. Not by a long shot.
Rest in Peace my brother. You are gone but you'll never be forgotten.
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Barking Alien
So sorry for your loss and my condolences to William's family. I hadn't realised how much material that you've highlighted over the years owes its existence to this creative genius. Thank you for this reminder of his work and I look forward to hearing more of your memories of gaming with William.
ReplyDeleteThank you Tim. This has been a particularly rough loss. Will was 'too close to home' if you know what I mean. His absense makes a small group of tight and close friends even smaller, although hopefully even tighter.
DeleteSince High School I have always identified Will as not only the best damn GM I've ever had but I really did learn so much from him. He put words to things I was already doing unconsciously and, by doing so, allowed me to see, "So that's what's going on! That's why X works and why Y doesn't". and I got better and better because of it.
He was also funny, smart, kind, and a great Human Being in a world currently teeming with mediocre ones.
Definitely more to come.
My condolences. You game with good people.
ReplyDeleteThank you Gordon. I do indeed.
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